PROFESSOR'S BOW.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 144, 20 June 1934, Page 5

PROFESSOR'S BOW.

A funny tale was told to Mr. Arthur Weigall, the Egyptologist, by Professor Sir Gaston Maspero. At the Louvre, in Paris, he and Professor 'Naville, another celebrated Egyptologist, were standing at the top of a flight of steps to receive the ex-Empress Eugenie, who desired to see recently discovered antiquities stored in an upper room. Professor j Naville, who was in those days a very I shy and nervous young man (Mr. Weigall wrote), happened to be standing with his back to a wall whereon were hung a row of buckets full of water to be used in case of fire, each bucket hanging free on a projecting hook, and as he bowed and stepped back before the ascending Empress his shoulders touched one of these fire pails and tipped it slightly. Maspero saw what was going to happen and held his breath. Naville was wearing a stiff collar several sizes too large for him, and when he bowed once more about half a pint of water was tipped down the back of his neck, but he was too shy to reveal his predicament, and except for an involuntary shudder and a slight chattering of his teeth continued his dutiful salutations, with the result that another half-pint quickly followed the first. "And, you know," said Mftspero to me, "the Empress never knew why it was that p little torrent of water issued from the ends of Naville's trousers and flowed down the steps toward her. She just raised her eyebrows and murmured 'Mon i dieu!' under her breath—that was aIL" J